Music

Apr 14, 2017, 08:52AM

Wiping Out

Among the downsides of living alone and working from home: sometimes I’m afraid to go outside, even on the sunniest of days. I have no definitive sense of how the rest of the world perceives my manner or how I appear, whether shirts don’t fit or there are BBQ sauce stains on my jeans. So it’s a minor relief whenever people are around during lunch walks, and feels like—but ultimately never is—a minor crisis whenever they are around. The world isn’t a vampire, though apparently I want it to be one.

Think of “The Translation” as the sonic panic attack that perpetually fails to fell you, that false paranoia forever threatening to curdle stray, spring-afternoon ambient castoff and medieval-dungeon malaise until breath is elusive and the curb rushes up in a gush of full-sensory vertigo. Sure, okay—this is pure contra-fantasy-cum-reverie, but how bad can it be if it concludes with a concerned Frenchwoman attempting to help you regain consciousness?